So you think you're a bushcrafter? Water Challenge

[21st century pict]

How about a flask made from a long Elder branch with a wooden wedge sanded to a tight fit on a rock and stuck in the bottom. I was also just wandering along the river a moment ago and went from a large hogweed leaf water bag and back to the hollow stem from the hogweed again, if you could catch an eel and bite its head off and strip the skin for a bag, or if you were near the coast a Dog whelk shell containers, if the time of the year permits Ice or snow may be avalable.

 

[Llwyd]

What the hang did you use ? a facecloth ? or a hankie ?

A piece of hand woven wool I use to recreate viking age clothing about 1m-sq.

I am glad to see you got to go for a walk. Wasn't that more fun than calling people names?

 

[mountainm]

How about a flask made from a long Elder branch with a wooden wedge sanded to tight fit on a rock and stuck in the bottom. I was also just wandering along the river a moment ago and went from a large hogweed leaf water bag and back to the hollow stem from hogweed again, if you could catch an eel and bite its head off and strip the skin for a bag, or if you were near the coast a Dog whelk shells container, if the time of the year permits Ice or snow may be avalable.

Reaming out a long elder branch would be a bit of a mare. (see my idea for an Elder "bucket" below).

 

[Toddy]

A piece of hand woven wool I use to recreate viking age clothing about 1m-sq.

I am glad to see you got to go for a walk. Wasn't that more fun than calling people names?

Lloyd you were the one with attitude; get real. You deserve the wooden spoon award for stirring

I went for a walk out the back gate, it was hardly a huge effort, and it was depressing because what should be a beautiful green pathway is being used as a dump along where the path dips down to the burn So I ended up needing to hassle the council again to come and clear it up. I keep the bit along side my garden clear, I can't do the half mile of the burnside.

Did you turn the wool in your hands as you walked back ? You can feel the weight of the water balance shift and find a rhythm that keeps the water in the wool and not running out.

M

 

[boatman]

An additional benefit of moss or cloth carrying the water is that the patient in extremis has a means of taking it. Squeezed into the mouth and then sucked which is a basic instinct is likely to get more in that trying any sort of pouring from an odd shaped fragile receptacle.

 

[Llwyd]

Lloyd you were the one with attitude; get real. You deserve the wooden spoon award for stirring

I must say you have a unique perspective on the world and seem to be able to find the negative in anything. The difference between you and me is that I would have cleaned up your walking path myself because it needed to be done and was the right thing to do, and you call in someone else because it is their responsibility. I would enjoy the fresh air and being outdoors working with my hands even cleaning up trash and you claim to have been depressed. A keyboard is a dangerous thing in the hands of a depressed person.

We are on page 3 and we only have one documented attempt plus a lot of could have, should have, would have... Perhaps you should have just documented your attempt in the first place instead of playing with that wooden spoon you seem to want to beat people with and giving us a bunch of off topic lectures about how stupid we are compared to you.

I really hope the prediction of this going 20 pages with 4-5 attempts is not true. No wonder post counts are so high. We could delete 2 pages of bovine excrement from this thread and would be all the better for it.

I am really looking forward to the contributions of the people who said they will do this when they get the time.

 

[Toddy]

Oh deary me; you really can't take a hint can you ?

1) I've cleaned the burn path for over 20 years.....the mess isn't getting any less, so don't preach to me about what I should do; I do more than my share and then some.
I phoned the council because I physically cannot move four huge metal fence panels from 20' down the burnside; they're going to have to bring in a team of workmen to shift that rubbish.

2) This forum is a place to sit and discuss....you know ? talk with people, not cause offence to every one of them Discussion includes bouncing ideas around; it doesn't really include sounding off at everyone because they don't do things just as you would like; but that appears to be your common behaviour. The internet is very public.

3) You clearly have not paid one bit of heed to the reality of life for most here; and claiming that only those who would post photographic evidence are worthwhile listening to is rather puerile, and again, deserving of the big wooden spoon.

4) The big wooden spoon is given to the biggest stirrer....the one who causes grief by slopping out of the pot and spattering everyone leaving only irritation behind.

You didn't answer the query about how you managed to carry the wet cloth; it does matter since either you actively manage the water or you lose it by not paying attention and behaving appropriately.

M

 

[horsevad]

How about a flask made from a long Elder branch with a wooden wedge sanded to a tight fit on a rock and stuck in the bottom. I was also just wandering along the river a moment ago and went from a large hogweed leaf water bag and back to the hollow stem from the hogweed again, if you could catch an eel and bite its head off and strip the skin for a bag, or if you were near the coast a Dog whelk shell containers, if the time of the year permits Ice or snow may be avalable.

If by "Elder" you mean the Sambucus nigra, then please be aware that this plant actually contains a cyanogenic glycoside by the name sambunigrin.

The concentration of the toxin varies by the different species in the genus Sambucus, and S. nigra is not the worst of them; but there have been documented cases were children have been hospitalised because they have chewed on wood from S. nigra.

The toxin is found (in varying concentrations) in all parts of the plant - except for the flowers and _ripe_ berries. The toxin _is_ present in the seeds of the ripe berries.

//Kim Horsevad


Edited to add:

Graphical representation of the toxin sambunigrin, alongside with two other cyanogenic glycosides:

 

[21st century pict]

Aye Sambucus nigra so does that mean the Elder flower wine and Elder berry wine is off the menu or is it just the wood?
and seeds.

 

[mountainm]

Aye Sambucus nigra so does that mean the Elder flower wine and Elder berry wine is off the menu or is it just in the wood?

People have been making whistles and peashooters out of it for years. Img guessing unless you eat the wood you'll be ok.


Just to add a little more bovine excrement.

 

[Toddy]

Don't chew the bark; it makes good dye though the leaves are better.
Lots of people can't eat the uncooked berries either, though I haven't heard of anyone having a problem with the flourish.
A biggish branch split down the middle makes a good hearth board

Thank you for the chemical illustration Kim; I'm going to copy that if you don't mind. I'll put it in among the dye notes.

cheers,
M

 

[horsevad]

Aye Sambucus nigra so does that mean the Elder flower wine and Elder berry wine is off the menu or is it just the wood?
and seeds.

I have no knowledge on how the wine is produced.

The _ripe_ berries do not contain the toxin, as long as you remove the seeds or destroy the toxin by heat inactivation. Neither is the toxin present in the flowers (which, by the way, has a documented effect in shortening the duration of the symptoms for some kinds of influenza).

People have been making whistles and peashooters out of it for years. Img guessing unless you eat the wood you'll be ok.

(...)

On the courses I teach I discourage use of Sambucus nigra to make whistles. The concentration of the toxin is probably not strong enough to cause illness if the wood is not actively chewed, but in some individuals there may be a local reaction, and in a teaching environment I want to be as cautious as practically possible.

//Kim Horsevad

 

[21st century pict]

Ok now we’re at it how about inhaling the dust from the fire plow any concerns there?
As for the wine the seed will eventually be strained out before bottling and the jam? toxin destroyed by heat.

 

[horsevad]

Ok now we’re at it how about inhaling the dust from the fire plow any concerns there?

The dust from processing wood is generally considered unhealty whether the wood contains toxins or not.

However, the amount of dust from a fireplow or other such device should be well below the levels required for health effects. Especially as we only use that fire plow or bowdrill occasionally. If you were using that fireplow 8 hours a day, all the year round, it might be another case.

Stay away from Laburnum and Taxus though. As far as I know, these two woods are the only european woods where the toxins in the dust can be acutely fatal.

//Kim Horsevad

 

[boatman]

What was included in it I do not know but a friend of ours made a an elderberry wine that literally sent you to sleep. As she was living in an unimproved cow barn at the time it was quite uncomfortable to wake up propped against a stall divider half sitting on an old mattress.

 

[dump of the stig]

Read it again. Outer bark only.

That and the whole area is slated to be clear cut. Gotta love progress.

that's cool, did wonder, cheers mate
anyway steering clear of this, its all got a little bit much for my brain thinking to work properly!

 

[horsevad]

What was included in it I do not know but a friend of ours made a an elderberry wine that literally sent you to sleep. As she was living in an unimproved cow barn at the time it was quite uncomfortable to wake up propped against a stall divider half sitting on an old mattress.

It could have been tryptophane, although I am not sufficiently familiar with the flora in your county to suggest a source for the tryptophane.

//Kim Horsevad

 

[horsevad]

Read it again. Outer bark only.

That and the whole area is slated to be clear cut. Gotta love progress.

Even if you only harvested the outer bark the tree has still lost a mechanical defence barrier against herbivores.

Furthermore, one should generally be aware that the cambium is actually composed of two layers, called the xylem and the phloem.

The xylem is the innermost layer, and is the layer which mainly manages the water transport to the leaves.

Outsite the xylem is the phloem which manages the transport of the sugar-rich sap to the non-photosynthetic parts of the plant.

The pholem can be damaged without damage to the xylem, leaving the tree to die a slow death, as it loses the ability to pump sap and sugar down its roots. This is called gridling, and is sometimes used for gardening purposes.

Suppose you have a tree or plant which produces a fruit, and you would want to make that fruit as big as possible. One way to produce such a big fruit is to girdle the brach on with a fruit is located (and remove the other fruits from that branch). As the xylem is not damaged, the tree can still send water up to the fruit and the leaves on the branch. The leaves continue doing their photosynthesis and produces large amount of sugary sap, which has no other place to go than the fruit, as the pholem layer has been damaged.

//Kim Horsevad

 

[Llwyd]

Moose strip paper birch down even further and don't kill them and we have been making birchbark things on the family land for 2 centuries now without managing to kill them either so I guess we are doing it wrong.

They do look funny when you strip 15 feet of it off though.

 

[Zingmo]

That's disgusting! You can't post stuff like that on a family forum!

Z

What? Oh... So it's not... Chemistry eh? Never mind...